Basics of Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology (4th Edition) -

Question

Basics of Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology (4th Edition) - Chapter 9

We briefly described how Shuryo Fujita sampled street segemnts and conducted systematic observations using Google Street View. In a paragraph or so, summarize another way images from Google Street View can be used as a source of field observation data. What are some advantages and disadvantages of this data source? Describe one example of a concept that can be readily measured with Google Street View and one example of a concept that cannot.

Explanation / Answer

Shuryo Fujita first took a digital map of the city. This gave him a scope in which he wanted tosample. He then decided his sampling would exclude non-populated areas because it would not beapplicable to his research. He then decided the size of his sampling would consist of a 300 by 300-footcell or the average length of a street in Newark New Jersey. Once he had his area that he wanted tosample, he laid each 300 x 300-foot cube in a grid pattern on the map. Fujita used a geographicinformation system to select 200 grid squares to look at. (Block & Fujita 2013) Crime location addresseswere collected from the Newark Police Department. The addresses of the vehicle theft incidents werethen converted to XY coordinates. Therefore, repeat victimization in this study occurs when the exactsame address is the location of multiple offences. Vehicle thefts that occurred in different parking spacesat a specific address, for example, would be considered the same location for our analysis. Now thiswould be a very labor intensive research if he was to go and get into a car and drive to each of those gridsquares. He would also probably not be able to access some of the areas or ensure that he was safe.Fujita decided to use the next best thing other that direct live observations. He would then go intoGoogle Street view and make his notations of what he witnessed. Fujita made sure to include things suchas car make, model and approx. year. He would also count how many vehicles were parked on the street.Fujita did not limit his observations to only cars, he would make notations about graffiti, litter and theneighborhood. It was important to Fujita to maintain a randomly selected method to avoid samplingbias. Using this gathered information, Fujita could assign potential risks of auto theft.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse B
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.